The Persecution of the Quakers: Ranters

The female preachers far exceeded their male associates in folly, frenzy, and indecency. One of them presented herself to a congregation with her face begrimed with coal-dust, announcing it as a pictorial illustration of the black pox, which Heaven had commissioned her to predict as an approaching judgment on all carnal worshippers. Some of them in rueful attire perambulated the streets, proclaiming the speedy arrival of an angel with a drawn sword to plead with the people; and some attempted feats that may seem to verify the legend of Godiva of Coventry. One woman, in particular, entered stark naked into a church in the middle of divine service, and desired the people to take heed to her as a sign of the times, and an emblem of the unclothed state of their own souls; and her associates highly extolled her submission to the inward light, that had revealed to her the duty of illustrating the spiritual nakedness of her neighbors by the indecent exhibition of her own person. Another Quakeress was arrested as she was making a similar display in the streets of Salem. The horror justly inspired by these insane enormities was inflamed into the most vehement indignation by the deliberate manner in which they were defended, and the disgusting profanity with which Scripture was linked in impure association with notions and behavior at once ridiculous and contemptible. Among other singularities, the Quakers exemplified and inculcated the for-bearance of even the slightest demonstration of respect to courts and magistrates; they declared that governors, judges, lawyers, and constables were trees that cumbered the ground, and presently must be cut down, in order that the true light might have leave to shine and space to rule alone; and they freely indulged every sally of distempered fancy which they could connect, however absurdly, with the language of the Bible.

It has been asserted by some of the modern apologists of the Quakers that these frantic excesses, which excited so much attention and produced such tragical consequences, were committed, not by genuine Quakers, buy by the Ranters, or wild separatists from the Quaker body. Of these Ranters, indeed, a very large proportion certainly betook themselves to America.... It is certain, however, that the persons whose conduct we have particularized assumed the name of Quakers, and traced all their absurdities to the peculiar Quaker principle of searching their own bosoms for sensible admonitions of the Holy Spirit, independent of the scriptural revelation of divine will. And many scandalous outrages were committed by persons whose profession of Quaker principles was recognized by the Quaker body, and whose sufferings are related, and their frenzy applauded, by the pens of Quaker writers.

Exasperated by the repetition of these enormities, and the extent to which the contagion of their radical principle was spreading in the colony, the magistrates of Massachusetts, in the close of this year (1658), introduced into the Assembly a law denouncing the punishment of death upon all Quakers returning from banishment. This legislative proposition was opposed by a considerable party of the colonists; and various individuals, who would have hazarded their own lives to extirpate the heresy of the Quakers, solemnly protested against the cruelty and iniquity of shedding their blood. It was at first rejected by the Assembly, but finally adopted by the narrow majority of a single voice. In the course of the two following years (1659, 1660) this barbarous law was, carried into execution on three separate occasions,--when four Quakers, three men and a woman, were put to death at Boston. It does not appear that any of these unfortunate persons were guilty of the outrages which the conduct of their brethren in general had associated with the profession of Quakerism. Oppressed by the prejudice created by the frantic conduct of others, they were adjudged to die for returning from banishment and continuing to preach the Quaker doctrines. In vain the court entreated them to accept a pardon on condition of abandoning foreever the colony from which they had been repeatedly banished. They answered by reciting the heavenly call to continue there, which on various occasions, they affirmed, had sounded in their ears, in the fields and in their dwellings, distinctly syllabling their names and whispering their prophetic office and the scene of its exercise. When they were conducted to the scaf-fold, their demeanor expressed unquenchable zeal and courage, and their dying declarations breathed in general a warm and affecting piety.

These executions excited much clamor against the government; many persons were offended by the exhibition of severities against which the establishment of the colony itself seemed intended to bear a perpetual testimony; and many were touched with an indignant compassion for the sufferings of the Quakers, that effaced all recollection of the indignant disgust which the principles of these sectaries had previously inspired. The people began to flock in crowds to the prisons and load the unfortunate Quakers with demonstrations of kindness and pity.